Torchwood: The Men Who Sold The World (8 page)

‘Sorry,’ he shouted after a second. ‘Slipped in the shower.’

‘How many times, for Christ’s sake?’ asked the neighbour before moaning quietly to himself, the words too low for Rex to hear.

Rex got to his feet and dragged Famosa back into the bathroom. There was a knock on the door.

Rex picked up a piece of broken mirror and checked his face, turning the shower head towards it to wash away some of the blood, before turning
off the faucet and walking back through to the bedroom.

‘Hello,’ called a woman’s voice through the door. ‘It is the manager, we hear a lot of noise.’

Rex opened the door a crack and stuck his head through. ‘I fell in the shower,’ he said again. ‘Couple of times actually. Everything’s fine.’

‘Really, sir?’ the woman looked down a huge hooked nose at him, clearly not convinced. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t mind if I took a quick look?’

Rex swung the door wide open and stood there naked in the doorway. ‘Kind of a bad time,’ he said, as the manager put her hands to her face. ‘Maybe a little later? Everything’s fine though. I broke the mirror but I’m happy to pay. You want the money now?’ He patted his right buttock as if checking for a wallet. ‘Oh, right… wrong pair of pants.’

‘Later!’ the manager said. ‘Go and cover yourself! Never have I seen such a thing.’ She stormed off.

‘Nose like that, I can well believe it,’ Rex muttered and stepped back inside.

He went through to the bathroom and crouched next to Famosa’s dead body.

‘So who were you, then?’ Rex asked, rifling through the man’s pockets. He pulled out a battered old wallet, stuffed with a good deal of cash. ‘Paid you well,’ said Rex as he ran his thumb along the notes. There was a driver’s licence and ID Card giving the man’s name as Eduardo Enrique Famosa.

Rex threw the wallet to one side and checked the rest of the man’s pockets. In his shirt there was a piece of paper with an address and some
vague directions on it. ‘Where you met your employer, maybe?’ said Rex, taking the piece of paper through to the bedroom and slipping it into the pocket of his jeans.

He went back into the bathroom, pulled Famosa’s body out by his feet and dragged him over to the far window that overlooked the trash. He opened the window and took a quick look: there was nobody around. He hoisted the dead body up, lifting him by his armpits. Famosa’s head lolled from side to side on its broken neck. Rex poked the head through the window and then lifted, straining against the dead weight. Slowly he fed the body through the window until, eventually, there was enough weight dangling outside to pull the rest after it. There was a soft crunch as the body bounced off one of the brimming dumpsters and fell behind it.

‘Perfect,’ said Rex. He closed the window and gathered up the pieces of broken vase from the floor. He took them into the bathroom and dumped them in the sink, adding the pieces of broken mirror. He looked at the door. Not a whole lot he could do about that except claim he’d broken it when he fell. Hell, give the woman enough money and she’d believe whatever he wanted her to.

He got back into the shower and quickly soaped himself off. He was bleeding from a number of places but nothing too major. Once clean, he towelled himself dry and got dressed.

Pulling the piece of paper from his jeans he looked at the address.

Dinner could wait, first he’d see if he had better
luck here than at the address Rodriguez had given him.

Mr Wynter was sitting in the central courtyard again when Rex came out of his room and down the stairs.

The old man had listened to the fight with some amusement. For a moment or two, he had wondered whether Famosa might get the better of Mr Matheson; he had hoped not, naturally, but the noises had gone on long enough for him to be far from sure.

He watched the man walk through to reception where the manager, clearly still incensed with the disturbance, went from red-faced and loud to demure and obsequious as soon as Rex handed over a large roll of banknotes. Probably the money I paid to Famosa, Mr Wynter thought with a smile. So long as it went to a good cause.

He lifted his face into the late-afternoon sun and closed his eyes for a few minutes, enjoying the warmth, letting Mr Matheson have a brief head start. After all, Mr Wynter knew exactly where the man was going.

All we have to do is learn how to control it
, he had said, and wasn’t that proving to be a greater battle than he had hoped?

Gleason closed his eyes, felt the tingle of the weed fronds in his hands and tried to find that sense of understanding he had achieved before. He and Mulroney had gathered a selection of test objects from around the house and, one by one, Gleason had made them disappear.

But that had been the limit of their tests. Who knew where the objects had gone? There was no way of knowing whether they had been sent back in time or simply shifted in space. Gleason knew which he had been aiming for, focusing his mind on the desired goal and letting his fingers move amongst the weed fronds in response to his subconscious.

To begin with, that alone had been an almost impossible task; Gleason was not a man who found it easy to relax, certainly not with a gun in his hand. That done – and he was finding it easier
each time, relaxing into the firing of the weapon, relaxing into the imagined act of violence – he needed to stretch the weapon’s capabilities and his own ability to control them.

Mills couldn’t have knocked on the door at a better time.

Corporal Owen Mills had always been a dreamer. He had filled a childhood in Des Moines with Big Plans for the future. These had included all the usual clichés: air pilot, astronaut, cop, football star… Most kids hit a point where, tired of the real world not living up to the Technicolor fantasies, they surrendered to reality. Not Mills. He spent so much of his time dreaming that the real world passed him by.

So, with a below-average education and parents that had long since washed their hands of their fantasist son, he found himself watching the American forces in Iraq and thinking: here’s another dream, one I might just be able to achieve. Owen Mills decided he wanted to be a hero.

He enlisted, he trained, he shipped out to Afghanistan.

And, against all expectation, Mills had found something he was good at. He obeyed orders and kept a clear head; he could aim a rifle when the world was falling in around him; and he
survived
. In conflict, that will always be the greatest achievement of all. He developed a solid reputation throughout the ranks, and when Colonel Cotter Gleason found himself a man down and looking for new blood, he found it in Owen Mills.

Gleason had always had his doubts about the boy – and even though he was in his mid-twenties Mills would always be a ‘boy’ to Gleason – not concerns about his ability to fight, but rather his politics. Mills was an idealist, still chasing that heroic dream. To Gleason that was a bump in the road they were bound to hit some day. He couldn’t bring himself to dismiss the boy for his beliefs – how the hell could he? – but he had always known that one day he might have cause to regret them.

Mills, for his part, had done his job within Gleason’s unit as well as he had elsewhere. However much he may have clung to his principles, he soon found, like most of us, that it was easy enough to justify almost anything if you looked at it the right way. Mills never stopped dreaming as his finger pulled the trigger.

But this was too much.

He had spent the time since Gleason’s announcement sitting on his own at the top of the house trying to rationalise and justify the things his commanding officer was suggesting. He wasn’t an idiot, he knew that going against Gleason would almost certainly be a risk to his wellbeing. The Colonel was not a man who accepted not getting what he wanted. Still, he couldn’t see another option. He either stood up for himself or became something he couldn’t bear to be.

Having worked up his courage, he walked down to the wine cellar and put his ear to the door. He could hear Mulroney and Gleason talking. He took a deep breath, reminded himself why this was
something he had to do and then knocked on the door.

After a few seconds, it was opened by Mulroney.

‘What do you want, Mills?’ he asked. ‘We’re kind of busy here, you know?’

‘I know, sir.’ Mills swallowed down his nerves. ‘But I need to speak to the Colonel.’

Mulroney stared at him for a moment, trying to read the young man’s face. ‘You sure about that, Mills?’ he asked.

‘Quite sure, sir.’

Mulroney nodded and stepped back so that Mills could enter.

Mills walked down the short flight of stone steps, walked up to Gleason and saluted.

Gleason smiled and gave a gentle salute back. ‘Why the ceremony, Mills?’ he asked. ‘You got a proclamation to make?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Mills loosened slightly. ‘Sort of, sir. I’ve thought about our current situation, and I’ve decided I can no longer be a part of this unit, sir.’

‘Oh, really?’ Gleason stepped in close, wanting to see how long it would take to break the kid’s confidence. ‘Too good for us?’

‘I just don’t believe in our current course of action, sir,’ Mills replied. ‘When I enlisted in this army, I did so with a set of beliefs and morals that I have tried to stand by ever since. I believe our current actions to compromise those beliefs. Therefore I cannot continue.’

Gleason nodded and smiled. ‘Practise that little speech, Corporal?’

Mills hesitated, not wanting to give a truthful answer and undercut himself.

Gleason shook his head. ‘So what are you going to do now?’

‘Sir?’

‘Well it’s all very well making your little speech, drawing your line in the sand, but what’s the next step?’

Mills thought for a second. ‘I’ll leave, sir.’

‘You’ll leave? You’ll just up and stroll out of here, will you? And what will you tell people about us?’

‘I will denounce your actions, sir.’ Mills realised he was likely damning his own future. ‘Though obviously I can’t stop you,’ he added, ‘and if you were gone from here by the time I reported in…’

Gleason laughed. ‘That’s it? Seriously?’ He began to stroll around Mills, circling the young man. ‘So basically, you want a free pass? You want to be able to stroll out of here and resume your life as normal. You can’t stay with us because we compromise your oh-so-stringent beliefs, but those beliefs aren’t strong enough for you to man up and stand by them?’

‘Sir?’

‘Don’t call me “sir”, Mills,’ said Gleason. ‘If you’re not willing to follow me, then you shouldn’t give me the credit of rank.’

‘I just—’

Gleason punched him in the kidneys, and Mills dropped to his knees.

‘If your principles are so damned strong, Mills,’ Gleason continued, ‘you should be willing to fight
for them. You shouldn’t just walk out of here, you should grow a pair and try and stop me.’

He kicked Mills in the back, sending the young man face-first into the dust of the cellar floor. Mills, realising he had to fight unless he wanted to stay in the dirt, rolled over and got back to his feet, ready to swing a punch. He wasn’t fast enough. Gleason got there before him, hitting him on the side of the face and driving him back down to his knees.

‘That’s better, soldier!’ Gleason shouted. ‘Fight for what you believe in!’

Mills roared, got to his feet and charged at Gleason, wrapping his arms around the man’s midsection and shoving him back against the far wall. The old soldier crashed into a rotting wine rack, and an explosion of dust and wood fragments erupted around him.

Mills stared at Gleason. He couldn’t quite believe what he’d just done.

Gleason, still lying on his back, looked up at him and slowly shook his head. ‘That’s it? One sign of life and then all over?’ Slowly he got to his feet. ‘Looks like you’ve learned nothing in this unit, kid,’ he said, ‘and you only get one free shot.’

Faster than Mills could react, Gleason swung his leg at Mills’ knee and there was a sickening crack as the leg folded backwards. Mills screamed as he toppled over, and Gleason aimed another kick at the boys stomach, winding him and silencing the noise.

Gleason looked over to Mulroney. ‘Didn’t want to help an old man?’

Mulroney smiled. ‘Like you needed it, Colonel.’

Gleason looked down at Mills, retching in the dust. ‘Looks like we’ve got ourselves a test subject.’

Shaeffer had heard the shouting coming from the cellar. They all had.

‘What the hell’s he doing down there?’ he said, looking to Leonard and Ellroy.

Leonard shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

Mills screamed, and Shaeffer looked at the other two imploringly. ‘You just going to sit there?’

‘The Colonel can handle it,’ said Ellroy.

Shaeffer shook his head. ‘So that’s it, is it? That’s the way you’re going to play this now? Screw Mills?’

He ran towards the cellar and then stopped. With Mulroney and Gleason there, alongside several crates of high-end weaponry, there wasn’t much he could do. Would it really help Mills if he burst in there and got himself killed? Wasn’t it better to take this opportunity to run? The phone was in his pocket – he hadn’t dared leave it anywhere in case the others searched his stuff, and it stayed with him even when he slept. What else did he need? His gun. He wasn’t going anywhere without that.

He went to the empty room he had been using to sleep in and grabbed his handgun. Standard-issue SIG Sauer P226, he checked the magazine, a full complement of twenty 9mm Parabellum cartridges. Parabellum, he thought, from the Latin ‘prepare for war’. Damn right.

He tucked the gun into his jeans and pulled a shirt loose over his T-shirt so that it was covered. He looked over to the other bedroll in the room. It was Mills’s.

‘Shit,’ Shaeffer sighed. ‘Shit, shit, shit…’

He left the room, glancing across the hall to make sure Leonard and Ellroy were staying put. They were playing cards, Leonard’s back to the door and Ellroy out of sight inside the room. Sloppy boys, thought Shaeffer. I could just stroll in there and shoot the pair of you. Maybe he should. No, this didn’t have to go that far, at least not yet. They’d chosen their sides, but maybe they would change their minds once things really got out of hand.